Dan's 2nd Sheltowee Shuffle: Day 2 - Roadwalkin' Rowan County and Meandering Away from Morehead

Day 2 - May 14th, Thursday
8 miles of roadwalk back to the northern terminus, 5(?) miles of trail to Lockeegee Rock

We got up around 8 our first morning on the trace, but we wouldn't be continuing on across Holly Fork Road and the suspension bridge over the stream. Anxieties mounted throughout the night and we were afraid of Jack's car getting towed from the Dollar General parking lot, so we decided to turn around, head back to my car at the start, drive back down to Frenchburg to get Jack's car and move it to an official trailhead at mile 47, Clear Creek Lake. Nothing is a given in quarantine or in the world in general so I can't really be that miffed about plans changing.

As I smacked three packets of oatmeal for breakfast I felt grateful that the sky beyond the canopy of branches above was finally breaking into blue after all the gloom and drizzle of yesterday. Sunlight slowly crept up to warm the forest floor and we packed up and hit the road kinda late in the morning at around 10:30, turning right onto Holly Fork, and then soon right again onto US  377, Cranston Rd, where 7 miles ahead my car sat parked at the Northern Terminus Trailhead.

lonely walk on holly fork rd, past grazing cows and goats and even an alpaca and unfettered views of rolling rowan county mountains

barns with quilt artwork graced the roadside

by midmorning the sun was beaming down us and i felt like i was roasting alive from the inside out with every step of pavement i took. this stretch kinda all just blurred together. a couple of people asked how we were doin and some passersby in a car stopped to ask if we wanted a ride but at that point we were only a mile away from baby harold

major hill action along the way (insert gratuitous string of nutting emojis)

We made it back to my car and soon were skrrting south back again to Frenchburg, where we found Jack's car Not Towed and in good health. Clear Creek was the next official trailhead north of Corner Ridge so we drove back up 20 minutes to drop Jack's whip off there and then made our way to a trailhead in downtown Morehead, at mile 25 on the Sheltowee. Thus we skipped a 14 mile section of the trace between Holly Fork and downtown Morehead but this was probably for the best since Morehead State University, through which the trace runs on its way into town, is listed as closed on the trace association website. 

We hiked a few more miles and camped on top of Lockegee Rock, which I learned was a Terrible Decision. It was a huge exposed rock with high winds, ceaseless whipporwills calling, and also a gathering spot for late night mischief-makers. I think three separate groups of people came up to get wasted. You're not supposed to camp on top of Big Ass Rocks, even if you think seeing the sun rise and set up there will be worth it, lesson learned. 

The view was rly pretty tho! Cave run lake in the distance

A Second Springtime Sheltowee Shuffle: Day 1 - Northern Terminus to Holly Fork Rd

Day 1, May 13th - 11 miles

It's been over a month since I went on my first backpacking trip on the Sheltowee Trace and I've been feeling a hunger for more solitude and miles through the forest building up within. Since I left the trace at US-27 on April 5th, I've been on several day hikes --some sections along the sheltowee, and some waterfalls around McKee and London. I also took a little 4/20 camping trip to witness the sunset over Laurel Lake again. But still I was pining for another few days of uninterrupted bumbling through the Daniel Boone National Forest, for the excitement of a whole afternoon of letting my feet carry me past the wonders of the wild of Kentucky.

As it's still quarantine season and Red River Gorge is still closed, I planned a 65ish mile hike of the first section of the Sheltowee, from the Northern Terminus to Corner Ridge Trailhead on the outskirts of Frenchburg, just before the trace descends into the Gorge. This way whenever things got back to normal in the summer, I could pick up the trail at mile 65 going into Red River Gorge and spend 3 weeks exploring the last 268 miles of the sheltowee trace at a more leisurely pace. It'd be dope if i could walk the whole trace before I turn 19 and go back to school this August. But things don't always pan out as planned as I'd learn on this trip.

This time i was able to drag my neanderthal roommate jack along on the trail with me; we'd leave his whip at corner ridge and mine at the start, up 25 miles north of downtown Morehead. The first day, wednesday, we planned to get up early and get the gat by 8 am. But we missed all our alarms, woke up late, dawdled over breakfast, and didn't really hit the road to Frenchburg til 11:30.

I got to Corner Ridge Trailhead first because I drive like a veritable maniac and found that the trailhead was closed, which I guess was stupid of me to assume otherwise since it leads into Red River Gorge. Jack got there, we regrouped, and decided to leave his car in the parking lot of a downtown Frenchburg Family Dollar, off US 460, which the trail intersects near mile 62. After this hurdle we got to the Northern Terminus around 2 pm. About a half mile in Jack realized he forgot his keys in my car and had to run back to the whip then back up the first breathwrenching ridgeline climb of the trace.

When we got to the trailhead it was abound with yellow wildflowers on this somewhat rainy downcast day.

By two we were starting on a breakneck pace up along the ridgeline above these little mountain towns. The hills of rowan county stood tall behind the trees flanking the path either way you looked. We passed a couple of small ponds of stagnant water but no sources of flowing trustworthy water. Besides a little stretch of crunchy gravel forest road, the path our first day was all single track trail, mostly over ridgeline but at times meandering through treeless grassy meadow. We walked through a pasture with cute dopey-eyed cows mere yards away from us. To my surprise by 6 we had already wheedled 8 miles away south of the start.

moo moos on the trail! not even a fence to keep em in their lil grazing area!

pretty much how most of the trail looked wednesday afternoon

 About 9 miles in, the trail dropped down into a little holler home to the famous Clark Park I'd read about in my guide and in so many trail blogs. Just a little family park next to a babbling stream set up right along the trace by whatever wonderful folks live on the property. It was a nice place to sit down beneath a tree and chomp on trail mix and catch our breaths before we tackled the last few miles of the day. Permission to camp here isn't explicitly given in the guidebook, but hikers are welcome to stock up on water from their pump and use their shelter to chill or make lunch under.

This sweet ole fella came up to us friendly as hell demanding pets and belly rubs while we took a breather at Clark Park. <3 :D

Soon after we were relatching the red gate guarding the trail and heading back up on a ridgeline, crossing over a dry creek bed, through one more open field host to underground pipelines, and settling down for the night in the woods just off of Holly Fork Rd. We chose the first flat spot in the woods we saw after leaving Clark Park, but right down the hill and adjacent to the road was a already established campsite with a fire ring of rock and a pile of firewood. Oh well. At least our site was right next to a stream, contaminated by road runoff or not this was a pretty convenient first campsite of the trip. 

By 8 I'd devoured a dinner of boxed pasta and was settling into sleep with dreams of downtown morehead and cave run lake ahead jostling around in my dome. We were here in the quiet of the daniel boone national forest again, disturbed only by the rare passing of a vehicle on a nearby country road as the sun set on a glum dreary hump day.

hills of rowan county in the distance whether u looked to ur right or left along the trail

we ended our day in the bottommost hollow in the land on this map on the first day, in the valley of holly fork.

Dan's Springtime Sheltowee Shuffle: Day 6 - Bewilderment in McCreary County

Day 6 - 15 miles

Last morning in the cumberland river valley. The day before was like a physical break for me and i wanted to push myself through as many miles as I could before the sun went down. By 8:30 I was back on the trail following the river upstream, over rocky banks and sandy beaches strewn with trash washed up from the swollen water. It was tamped down like a crust in places where ATVs had once rolled over, in other places you had to scramble over piles of drifted wood and various discarded elements of human life. Soon after I crossed pitch creek and its rapids the trail turned and began its climb up and out of the the river valley and then deposited me out for a road walk on KY 700, on which I would walk over Indian Creek.

This one felt really drawn out, I felt like I was already baking in the morning sun, but after two miles of this winding two-lane road framed on either side by forest and the occasional crop of homes the path turned back to trail. Again I observed the pattern of green returning as I descended into the valley and found myself again passing under looming rock structures, crossing streams and following cliffsides and creeks. This 8-9 mile section of wilderness had me really confused, it was full of unlabeled forks and I kept feeling like I was making wrong turns. I felt like blazes were missing in some places, at times you could spot them on fallen trees, there were several pieces of marking tape that had fallen to the trail. Parts of the trail in this section are wide horse trail, on some of the creek fords there were boards lining the bottoms for horses. Several rock structures I passed had barred up entrances to old mines or caves at their bases.

the woods near whitley city

rock shelter i cheffed up some ramen for lunch under

I wasn't even in this section of wilderness for that long--by 5 or so I'd come up on the trail parallel to US-27--but for some reason my morale was just kinda wavering and upon discovering I had reception I called Elaina at 3:45 to inquire whether or not she and Ian would be inclined to drive 2 hours down to come bail me out of the woods.

seeing open sky for the first time in a long time always disorienting

 It wasn't having a terrible time on sunday. I still gawked up at every rock structure by the wayside, admired the clarity of the creek in this quiet valley, found peace in the fractal-like patterns of the branches and the leaves when i gazed up at the canopy. I guess I was just tired of the anxiety of being in confusing woods and bearing the worry of a missed turn alone and missed everyone back home. I could cite other arguably good reasons to stop at US27--after the trail crossed the highway, the sheltowee trace entered the big South Fork National River and Recreation Area, which required a pass for backcountry camping, which I had not acquired and there would be several creeks in the coming days that would be swollen with the springtime rain, i left my sketchbook in jack's car the day before and being without it throws me off, i should probably just go be a good citizen and go ahead and cloister myself at home. But in the end hiking alone has its downfalls and I felt like five solid days of it was good enough for my first go.

the trail parallels US-27 for a bit til it spits u out at a trailhead on the road

Elaina said yes of course like the angel she is and soon I was climbing out of the woods again, the forest growing thinner as I passed under powerlines and made my way to the US-27 trailhead. I found myself baking in the sun biding my time again, except i was sprawled out like a bug in a wayside parking lot this time. I read some roadside literature left at the kiosk about prescribed burning. Learned that they are trying to increase the habitat of wild turkeys, which is admirable but i laughed thinking about the fat fuckin bird that scared me on my first night in the woods.

headed home babey! 

By 7 big Harold was getting hotboxed once more and we were slicing back up highway away from the mountains and valleys that had been my home for almost a week at a pace dizzying for someone who'd been on foot for a long time. The countryside was golden in the sunset as we sped by, I felt blessed to be a Kentuckian witnessing her state bloom into spring.

Despite the misgivings that led me to cut my long walk short on Sunday, I would definitely hit that solitude piece again. It felt empowering striking out alone, I felt like I learned a lot on this first trip. I hope to still walk all of the Sheltowee Trace this year, whether it be in the heat of summer or over winter break or in chunks whenever I manage to carve the time and money out. Everything is in flux in the world right now and I can't really help but feel pessimistic when I think about the future sometimes, but there will always be a peace in the woods for me to find and a place in the forest to gaze up at the stars from. I will do my darnedest to stay alive for the opportunity to see my state at its rawest and most wild again, and until then ill appreciate the small shit in life like sleeping on a mattress and fruit that's not dried.

68 miles total on the southern half of the trace

Dan's Springtime Sheltowee Shuffle: Day 5 - Cumberland Falls

Day 5, April 4th - 7 miles?

I woke up around 7:30 next to Dog Slaughter Creek's eternal rush towards the cumberland river, made instant oats sans a stove, and mulled over what was ahead for me this Saturday. I wasn't due to meet up with Jack til two in the afternoon, and I had camped only about 3 miles from our designated meeting place, cumberland falls state park, so I planned to make like molasses in my riverside crawl. After I packed up I detoured away from the river upstream of the creek, path climbing over boulders and around some precarious ledges, towards Dog Slaughter Falls.

Dog slaughter falls was one of the first hikes i did alone, in the heat of august, however I'd only ever seen it in the latter half of the year. I was hype to see it swollen with the force of spring. Coming up to dog slaughter falls for the first time half a year ago was my first taste of the Daniel Boone National Forest, the first taste of how nice solitude could be. Later in the fall i returned here with my friends Neil and Sean. We wheedled down the interstate, made a stop at the Wildcat Harley Davidson, eating into our daylight. Heading back from the falls the day was quickly disappearing from the forest. We got back to baby harold where I left him on a dusty gravel forest road and Sean and I shared a blunt and the glory of being blasted under a sheet of stars unfettered by light pollution.

I passed underneath a rock overhang and the falls came into view, beyond the huge boulders dropped into the water. I was here alone again sitting and chilling and biding my time, waiting for the sun to make it past the tall trees of the forest, for the warmth to hit the gorge and touch my skin, for the day to grow longer and for the time to creep towards when Jack would get his foot on the floor southward (time passes slowly when you're lost in a dream). I set my pack down and mounted a boulder right in front of the falls. I danced just to make sure i still could. I leapt off and bear-crawled up a boulder twice as girthy as the first. From this height i could lift my face and be kissed by the morning sun. I was  paying tribute to the river valley i would call home for two nights. To the falls that instilled within me the love of Kentucky's wilderness, to this land i was so lucky to have in my backyard.

I waited, watched the sun climb out of the trees, observing the sheet of white dawntime clouds break into wisps into blemishless blue. The roar of the falls filling the valley would dim as the year stretched on, only to return with the wet of spring, as always. For every breathless climb to a ridgeline there would be a downhill race to a creek, for every pulse of the wake against the bank there is the rowboat chugging by as its catalyst. You sit and stare entranced by the river and it will always flow on. Or some dumb spiritual shit like that.

dog slaughter falls at dawn. she girthy!!!! 

I said goodbye to the gorge home to dog slaughter falls around 11, keeping on along the brambly banks where huge boulders and rock structures abound, fallen from the cliffline above. I wish I could have taken more pictures of the behemoth rocks but at this point my phone had been on 1% since dawn and I wouldn't get power til Jack pulled up. I crossed a footbridge over catfish creek and through puddles where the water of streams and cliffside waterfalls made their way to the river. The trail passed through a natural tunnel of suspended rock, under the shade of more towering rock overhangs from which I viewed the rapids of the Cumberland scintillating in the late morning sun. 

The trace gets rerouted a couple miles from cumberland falls because of all that bramble, lack of maintenance shit i guess. I detoured up Rock House Trail, which was a breathwrenching climb to get further up the banks. I bumbled along, feeling tiny in the shade of house-sized boulders and streams and waterfalls dropping right next to the trail. The trail dropped back down to sandy riverside banks, where a scruffy-looking man fished and some teenagers looked about ready to take a dip. I forged my way with curiosity towards a side trail further down on the banks going towards a crop of boulders. I mounted one and crawled to the top of the rock, where it was marked by lichen and moss and pocked by water-filled dips.

I lifted my head and she caught me off-guard, upstream just a bit. Cumberland falls, whom I'd walked nearly 50 miles so far to see. I took my pack and my shoes off and sat for a while, baking in the sun on this big ass rock, before the glory of Kentucky's niagara. It was an explosion of a band of white, rushing water in a sheet of blue-green that was the river. Right across the river was Eagle Falls, which falls from a rock ledge, forked unevenly into two streams, down to a pool of water by the side of the river. I watched across the river as adventure-seekers waded in the water by the falls, families in crowds made it down the bankside trail ensconced by huge boulders. The river valley was a cacaphony of rushing water, the river, and the two visible falls, and the pulsing wake against the shore and the rocks, the breeze lifted my spirit as the sun beat down from a perfectly clear blue sky, onto the murky teal of the river, the lush green of the year-long trees blanketing the slopes and and the barren whites and browns of trees soon to be touched by the color of spring. It all felt sepia-toned, the din swallowed my mind, I wanted to stay bleaching up on that rock forever.

But soon a need to piss eclipsed my want to sit and stare and I continued on the trail towards the park, up a flight of stairs, away from trail onto the gentle paving of sidewalks and overlooks where couples and families gathered, enjoying the springtime sunshine. Despite quarantine Cumberland Falls State Park was popping, a few days after i got home from my trip it was closed. It'd been a while since I'd looked at my face in a mirror and using the bathroom at the park I couldn't help but think, got damn, this is surreal and I lowkey look kinda cute for 4 days into roughin it. It was around noon now, I'd asked the unkempt fishing man for the time, and i paced the park grounds and sat on a bench near the entrance til jack showed up a little before schedule, around 1:30. 

I saw him coming up with all his scruff and he took his pack and loaded it and me into his car. We got to work attempting to charge as fully as possible my phone and the two powerbanks I had, went on a drive to a nearby gas station for hot hamborgers in between some limpid buns (it was delicious and I was taken aback at the dismal price of gas when we pulled up, we love a recession), and I talked his head off about the shit I'd bore lone witness to over the past few days. 

I originally planned to hike as long as I was able to, leaving the woods tuesday night right before I was due to clock into work on wednesday morning. But leading up to Saturday I'd been contemplating cutting my trip short, to just cumberland falls, or just to monday. I realized I was underprepared for my first trip, having run out of fuel and dealing with wet boots. Storms were forecasted tuesday, and that day I would have to ford the wide, deep Rock Creek and I was afraid it'd be swollen by stormwaters by the time I got to it. Jack also asked me to come home--things were escalating back home, everyone was wearing masks and stores were limiting the amount of people allowed in at a time. But he also said he just missed me. And I missed everyone back in Lexington with all my heart too. 

Chiefin alone by a creek electric blue, or by a lake alive with the vibrancy of the sunset, you just want the people you love to be able to share in that moment with you. 

But again I am stubborn and naive and after paring down my supplies of food and switching out sweaty dank clothes for new, I was walking along hwy 90, crossing over the cumberland river on the Gatliff Bridge. I left whitley county for mccreary, where i'd be following the cumberland upstream for another few miles, on the opposite side this time. I left the boundary of Cumberland Falls State Park, continuing down under looming rock structures. By 6 I had found my campsite for the night, a streamside piece of sandy flat beach criss-crossed by ATV tracks with a fire pit littered with beercans from riders of past. 

freaking it in mccreary county, river beyond the trees on the bank

I committed the remainder of my evening to dipping in the river, current refreshing against my bare skin. As my dinnertime pasta boiled I air-dried on the beach, solitary figure on the river. The only other signs of life were the rare sounds of distant speedboats, whoever had set up this campsite was long gone. The sun dipped back behind the treeline, the orange-hued light of dusk drained from the valley, the stars shuffled into position high above my lonely tent on the banks, and soon I was asleep in my final night in the Daniel Boone National Forest.

flanked by cliffs, the cumberland river valley captured my heart

Dan's Springtime Sheltowee Shuffle: Day 4 - Bumbling Along the Cumberland to Dog Slaughter Creek

Day 4, April 3rd - 13 miles

I woke up and the lake was choked with fog. The dense white obscured neighboring peninsulas from view, as if the lake could extend forever under the cover of the fog. I remembered that since it was now friday, tomorrow I'd be meeting up with Jack at cumberland falls to get some resupply items. I had run out of butane, needed some fresh clothes, and honestly just missed getting to talk to someone at length. Cumberland Falls was 16 miles south, and decided I would take it a lil slower today and camp out at the nexus of Dog Slaughter Creek and the Cumberland River, about 3 miles downstream of Kentucky's Niagara.
With only 13 miles to tackle on Friday, I didnt really get the gat til 9 or 10. I continued on the trail skirting the bottom left half of Laurel Lake, past the lake's boat ramp and onto KY 1193, on which I crossed the Laurel Dam, passed into Whitley county, and observed the obsidian-looking crater-like surface of some body of water dammed dry. A hydroelectric power station stood at the bottom of the dam, and the Laurel River flowed away from it.

my elongated silhouette falling down on the dam

goodbye, laurel lake and laurel couny

 onto see what whitley county holds for me.

 The morning fog had been replaced with wide open cerulean sky, rising sun already making me sweat during the shadeless roadwalk. Soon enough I saw the last of the blemishless reflection of the blue sky in laurel lake's crystalline waters, and was pushed once more into dense woods, carving my way towards the rivers. The landscape became more rush and green as I dropped down into the valley. Bewilderment struck when I came upon a small bluff and couldn't figure out which way the trail wound around it. But I looked down and to the left, and found myself in the shade of a towering rock structure again, blaze tacked to a tree reaching up alongside it.

 Whitley County woods

The elevation dropped some more and soon the din of a rushing river crept into the background of my hearing. I crossed whitman branch of the laurel river and found myself in a valley shaded by rock faces towering above. The path turned wide and grassy as I followed the Laurel River to  the Mouth of Laurel Boat ramp, where it met the cumberland river. There were several cars parked on the shoulder, quarantine or not it i guess it was a good day for fishing. Soon I dropped off on the right side of the road back onto trail, beginning my long and at times harrowing crawl along the banks in the Cumberland River Valley. 

 cute fish poster at the mouth of laurel boat ramp

 boulder hopping across whitman branch

no shade in the shadow of the cross - sufjan stevens

A couple miles into my chase of Cumberland River two hikers came up past me. They warned me about how flooded the path would be since it was Moist Time and the trail followed cliffsides right next to the river. They showed me a picture of where they decided to turn back--the trail continued on the other side of murky water, right up next to a bluff so there was no way to bushwhack up around it. There was a flood route that took you further up in elevation on forest roads avoiding the mess, but it started back at the boat ramp.
Being the stubborn fuck i am i bumbled past them with a smile on my face, towards whatever the swollen cumberland had to throw at me. There had already been parts of the trail where river water obscured it and I had to eke a path out up a bit on the slope full of huge rocks and thorns. This problem got worse as I went on, slowing me down a lot.

yeah aight dude

rock structures with seasonal waterfalls and cliffsides on the bank that forced me to wade through sediment-filled cumberland river water. a beautiful but at times treacherous section of trail.

 trees lining the bank half-submerged in water everywhere. someone left a pack of water bottles on this beach campsite on the river?

 at one point I had to squeeze through a crevice in a rock structure i ended up in to pass another submerged part of the trail. The water was again up against a rock face but this time i was tired of taking my shoes off and made out a path going up in the woods behind the rock face. but behind it i only found a tight gap with smaller boulders balanced inside of it and i had to separate from my pack and use some dilligent footwork to get through, now covered in sand. it kinda sucked but if the water weren't so high on the cumberland the falls and creeks wouldn't have been so girthy, and I liked seeing them in full force this april. 

and then I got to bark camp creek. i was hiking with the guidance of Scot "Taba" Ward's "Thru Hiker's Manual" for the sheltowee trace, which described the boulder-hop creek crossing as "challenging". this was not a good word to describe it. harrowing or ass-clenching are more apt descriptors. water rushed in between huge slippery boulders in the creek, hopping them was the only way to make it across. there was a derelict half-torn-down bridge starting on the north end that just kind of watched you mockingly as you tried to identify the path that wouldn't have you slipping and carried into the current. In trying to lower myself in the space between two boulders onto another with unsure footwork, I snapped the chest strap off of jack's pack and nearly lost my bear spray and manual to the creek.

 bark camp creek and the upstream cascades wre rly pretty tho

eventually i got to the other side and noticed a sign designating this part of the trail as a "prescribed burn area" which i guess means it was under some kind of rehabilitation. The path past bark camp creek along the cumberland was full of bramble and thorns and flies. I passed a couple people making their way down the banks, but not as many as i wouldve expected with the trail's proximity to cumberland falls. I crossed some more creeks and countless small streams emptying into the cumberland river, before making it to the nexus of dog slaughter creek and the cumberland around 6 pm. 

Having gone kinda hard over the past 3 days, i decided to make camp early and spend the evening chilling fried as fuck in the cumberland river valley. i walked closer to the wooden bridge over the creek i noticed what looked like white ribbon strung across it. i got up to it and it was a length of toilet paper under which a note was weighted down by two rocks. it read along the lines of "tried to look for yall, got worried, heading back to the car, 4 pm.". this was definitely weird and i had no way of knowing if whoever left the note had found who they were looking for. the note could have also been there for multiple days; it hadn't rained since wednesday morning. it was sobering because i was out here alone in a beautiful, desolate place and it could have been me getting lost in the woods. but i stepped over the note under the rocks and set up camp by the southern bank of the creek, in a flat spot with barely enough room for my tent, determined not to let my vibes turn negative due to the note.

After another dinner of bagged flaked tuna i climbed up onto a big boulder, the top still warmed by a slowly lowering sun. i looked down at the cascades on the creek, water making its way to the cumberland. i skipped over to the bridge on the sheltowee trail over the creek, staring at the difference in color where the two courses of water met. the afternoon was warm, i felt like the world was giving me a big hug as the dying sun kissed only the heads of the trees in the Daniel Boone National Forest. 

 the gorge and blues of a creek electrified by the sunset

trailside waterfalls dropping from the tops of rock faces were everywhere. it was fun when the trail took u right under their refreshing mist.

I felt really lucky have the opportunity to set my tent up in so many different landscapes over the past couple of days--I'd slept behind a church in a rural neighborhood, in the solitude of deep laurel county woods, on a prime piece of lakeside real estate, and now i was laying my head to rest again under the stars next to the mighty cumberland river. 

Dan's Springtime Sheltowee Shuffle: Day 3 - Through Cane Creek Valley to Laurel Lake

Day 3, April 2nd - 15 miles

I emerged from the cocoon of my sleeping bag, had another hearty instant oatmeal breakfast, packed up, and began the climb out of the valley i spent the night in. The sun was struggling to break past the forest canopy in the morning but i was optimistic that the warmth would come to the world soon.

McFadden Cemetery-baffled as to how anyone dragged a hearse out here. the cemetry sign was riddled with bullet holes, but alas what else is there for good ole boys to get up to out here

My boots were still waterlogged and by midmorning my feet were aching again. I made my way to the familiar gravel forest road I'd driven Baby Harold through, and got a call out to Jack and my Mom to tell them I was OK. After a short stretch of crunchy road the path returned to trail and I dropped down into the Cane Creek Valley, near the Rockastle River. I was excited to find Van Hook Falls today, to stand in the mist on this first sun-soaked day of my trip. I took a wrong turn onto the connecting Rockastle Narrows East trail, encountered some bewilderment as blazes eluded me on the path, but by 2:30 I was boiling up another ramen lunch, drying out my feet, and toking up in front of Van Hook Falls. You take a wooden flight of stairs down a turn and there it is, cascading off a ledge in the creek down in front of a rock structure down to a pool flanked by huge slabs of broken earth. By lumchtime i had gone 7 miles, with 8 more to make it to tonight's campsite near Holly Bay on Lake Laurel. 

I didn't cross paths with anyone hiking until this day, but in Cane Creek Valley i saw families, mountain bikers, and horse riders. 

rock structures in cane creek valley and the blue of the creek illuminated by the sun

The trail then criss-crossed various creeks and streams, which i felt like i was flying past fueled by ramen and the hope of laurel lake coming up. I left cane creek valley when I came up onto the road at KY 192 

came to a placard at the KY 192 trailhead, I started up in hazel patch and by that point had made it 28 miles down to where the star was.

Bumbled through some more Laurel County woods until i got my first taste of the Lake. The blue of Ben Branch reflected the afternoon sky beyond the trees ensconcing the trail. 

My first look at Laurel Lake, and a perplexing blank trail sign.

By the time I had gotten to Laurel Lake, my pace had slowed down considerably, because I was admiring the vast blue of the lake swallowing the land, but also because my feet hurt like sin. They had spent all day trapped and chafing against wet boots that now smelled like they were culturing some kind of fungal colony. Every step was agony as I followed the trail lakeside, rounding peninsulas and passing multiple side trails along the way. Thankfully the terrain here was not as rugged as the valleys I'd encountered earlier in the day. Passed some day hikers along the lake, as well as mountain bikers enjoying the thrilling slopes and curves of the trail. Men fishing in rowboats bobbed idly on the water, speedboats whizzed by. I passed what I guess was the marina which housed a couple dozen speedboats in the water, and some docked houseboats. Soon I had come up to a side trail leading up to Holly Bay Campground. I tried the privies there--locked, the campground shuttered due to the virus. I drew some water from a campground pump and realized it was murky-looking, a bit of shimmering oil floated to the top. I saved it just in case I couldn't find anything more suitable to drink.

Around 7:30 I finally hobbled to my campsite for the night, a clearing on a finger of earth extending into the lake. Though I was aware of the speedboats leaking oil into the lake and all the pollutants probably floating around in the water, I figured Laurel Lake water probably wasn't any more polluted than the municipal water you'd get in Lexington, filled up Jack's camelback and nalgene with it, dropped in some chlorine tablets and prayed the shits would spare my intestines.

 I made macaroni for dinner, and reveled in the sunset reflected on the Lake at the close of this grueling day. I was slowly toasting my brain watching the world dim on the Laurel. It was the first clear night sky I saw on the trail, and I was entranced at the bare branches of the trees reaching up to a luminous half moon and the stars bright away from the light pollution of the city. A lakeside cacophony comprised of gentle waves lapping against the banks, ducks and crickets calling out, and distant speedboats roaring into the night lulled me to sleep. I was vaguely aware of two fishing men dragging their boat up out of the water into the bank around 9:30, and I was swimming in my sleep through the wonder of what Friday would bring me, wonder as vast as the lake beyond my tent. I had my own little corner of the lake to myself, and the moonlight was leaking in through the fabric of my tent, as if the moon was blessing my sleep with its eternal guard.

im naming my firstborn laurel don't @ me

the section i walked on thursday